Google Bans all Kinds of Cryptocurrency-related Advertising

In an announcement posted by Google, the company has decided to follow Facebook’s path and ban advertisements for content related to cryptocurrencies from June 2018. The list includes ICOs, cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets, cryptocurrency trading advice as well as other projects. Google ads provide users with search campaigns to locate target customers and measure performance to improve their clicks.

Interestingly, the ban extends to “aggregators and affiliates”, which includes websites dedicated to providing news updates, reviews and stories related to cryptocurrencies and organizations which have established links and partnerships with cryptocurrency companies. Scott Spencer, Director of Sustainable Ads, wrote a blog post explaining that digital advertising needs to become a safe place for advertisers and customers alike because “a negative experience hurts the entire ecosystem”. 3.2 billion ads were banned last year, while 400,000 risky websites were removed from the Google network. 90,000 websites and 700,000 mobile applications were also blacklisted in 2017.

“We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution,” Spencer told CNBC.

Investigators from Canadian province Manitoba were already in talks with Google to fix the problem with cryptocurrencies by banning them completely. They were worried that ICOs and token offerings, which appeared too good to be true, mislead users into buying tokens due to the hype. Complaints have also increased after scammers took over various social media accounts and encouraged cryptocurrency users to share their private keys.

Last year, Bitcoin was among the top searches on Google with questions such as “What is Bitcoin?” and “How to mine Bitcoin?” However, its popularity has declined in the last three months. Recent statistics by Google Trends show that the famous cryptocurrency only has an interest rate of 20 out of 100 in March 2018.